Introduction

1.

This Standard provides guidance to national, regional and international industrial property authorities which, on the basis of national industrial property laws or international industrial property conventions, publish announcements related to registrations and/or grants of titles of protection for industrial designs or to deposited industrial designs.

2.

At present there are significant differences in the contents of the Industrial Design Gazettes, issued by various industrial property offices and other authorities in the form of a separate gazette or as part of a more comprehensive gazette, in the presentation of the particulars, especially the use of data elements for which INID codes are indicated in WIPO Standard ST.80, as well as in the sequence in which announcements are given. Consequently, this Standard is aimed at promoting a uniform presentation of data on industrial designs and, thus, at improving the access to the bibliographic content of Industrial Design Gazettes and, if available, the reproduction of the deposited designs.

Definitions

3.

For the purposes of this Standard, the expression:

(a) “design” means “industrial design”;

(b) “Industrial Design Gazette” means an official publication containing announcements with respect to designs made in accordance with requirements under national industrial property laws or international industrial property conventions;

(c) “entry in an Industrial Design Gazette” means at least one comprehensive announcement made in an Industrial Design Gazette regarding the bibliographic data related to design registration or to an application therefor or to the deposit of a design;

(d) “INID” is an acronym for “Internationally agreed Numbers for the Identification of Data.”

References

4.

References to the following WIPO Standards are of fundamental importance to this Standard:

WIPO Standard ST.2Standard Manner for Designating Calendar Dates by Using the Gregorian Calendar;

WIPO Standard ST.3Recommended Standard on Two-Letter Codes for the Representation of States, Other Entities and Intergovernmental Organizations;

WIPO Standard ST.10/DGuidelines on Physical Characteristics of Patent Documents Particularly Relevant to Reproducibility and Legibility of Such Documents;

WIPO Standard ST.17Recommendation for the Coding of Headings of Announcements Made in Official Gazettes;

Recommendation

Format of industrial design gazettes

5.

The format of an Industrial Design Gazette should be A4, that is 297 mm x 210 mm. If the format A4 is not applied, it is recommended that the format used should not exceed the above-mentioned format in either of its dimensions.

Contents and layout of industrial design gazettes

6.

The following should be indicated on the outside front cover of the Industrial Design Gazette:

(a) the name of the Industrial Design Gazette;

(b) the name of the national, regional or international authority the announcements of which are contained in the Industrial Design Gazette;

(c) the year, by four digits, and the number of the Industrial Design Gazette with the date of publication in accordance with the provisions set out in WIPO Standard ST.2;

(d) the first and last numbers of announcements concerning registrations or deposits of designs, made during the period in question, if such announcements are given in the Industrial Design Gazette;

(e) the Table of Contents.

The numbers referred to under subparagraph (d), above, are to be indicated only when the numbers constitute a coherent and complete set. When the entries to be given under subparagraph (e), above, cannot be included on the outside front cover, the Table of Contents can be situated on the outside back cover or on the first inside page.

7.

The sequence of chapters in which announcements are given in Industrial Design Gazettes should conform to the sequence of the official procedure regarding the registration or deposit of designs.

8.

The announcements concerning renewals of registrations or deposits of designs and of the different sorts of changes in the legal status of a registered design or the deposit of a design can be given following the data mentioned in paragraph 7, above.

9.

The codes to identify various headings of announcements in Official Gazettes provided for in WIPO Standard ST.17 should be indicated.

10.

The announcements referred to under paragraphs 7 and 8, above, may contain:

(a) merely bibliographic data or

(b) bibliographic data and a reproduction of the design in the form of a photographic or other graphic representation.

11.

If the deposit includes more than one design, each of them should be identified by a different number or letter. Where the same article is represented from different angles, the identifications of the respective representations should be linked, e.g., 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc., for the first article; 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, etc., for the second article; and so on.

12.

The bibliographic data of the announcements referred to under paragraph 10, above, should be preceded by INID codes provided for in WIPO Standard ST.80. They should be presented in accordance with the guidelines laid down in paragraphs 10 to 17 of that Standard.

13.

The announcements of registrations or deposits of designs should appear either in the order of the International Classification for Designs (Locarno Classification) or a national classification of designs, or in the order in which the designs were registered or deposited.

14.

The Industrial Design Gazettes may contain:

(a) other official announcements on provisions in the field of designs adopted by the respective national, regional or international authority publishing or registering designs;

(b) notices relating to practice and procedures of the authorities mentioned in subparagraph (a), above;

(c) subscription information and the name of a person, position or organization to whom any communications should be addressed;

(d) information on the services of the authorities mentioned in subparagraph (a), above;

(e) articles on matters relating to designs.

It is recommended to give such information and notices on the first or last pages of the Industrial Design Gazette. Alternatively, they may be published in a separate journal. Advertisements may be included on the inside pages of the cover or on the last pages.

15.

It is desirable that the Industrial Design Gazettes contain an explanation of the codes used therein, e.g., INID codes according to WIPO Standard ST.80, two‑letter codes according to WIPO Standard ST.3.

16.

The Industrial Design Gazettes should contain indexes in order that the users can be more rapidly informed. The following minimum of indexes is recommended for publication: number index, classification index and alphabetic name index. Cumulative indexes relating to Industrial Design Gazettes can also be published separately.

17.

In the Industrial Design Gazettes, two-letter codes provided in WIPO Standard ST.3 should be applied for the identification of the national, regional or international authority publishing or registering the design.

18.

To facilitate use of Industrial Design Gazettes and to avoid possible difficulties by a user in identifying gazettes from which a page has been copied, it is recommended that on each page information be printed, giving, in addition to the page number, the following minimum data:

(b) title of the Industrial Design Gazette or the official abbreviation thereof;

(c) issue number and publication date of the issue (in accordance with the provisions set out in WIPO Standard ST.2), or at least one of these two data.

19.

To enable easier access to the information contained in Industrial Design Gazettes, it is also recommended that each page of the Gazette contain an indication of the subject matter given on the respective page by using, e.g., a symbol, a catchword and/or the WIPO Standard ST.17 code.

Certain physical properties of the industrial design gazettes

20.

The physical properties of Industrial Design Gazettes should comply with the respective guidelines given in WIPO Standard ST.10/D for the purposes of reproducibility and legibility.

Timely, adequate and conspicuous announcement of changes in the content and/or layout of industrial design gazettes and other publications

21.

Difficulties are sometimes faced by users of Industrial Design Gazettes when the content and/or the layout of information given in the Gazette is changed. Thus, it is recommended that sufficiently advanced notice be given whenever a national, regional or international authority is planning to make changes in its Industrial Design Gazette. It is also recommended that the advance warning should be displayed prominently, e.g., by the use of loose-leaf sheets or colored sheets, in the Industrial Design Gazette in which the changes will take place. Moreover, notices giving advance warning of a change should also be published in bulletins which some industrial property offices publish and which contain notices and information of a general character. Any change should also be stated in the appropriate publication in which it occurs for the first time.